Women's Roles in World War II: Opportunity and Abuse

Introduction: War, Women, and a World in Transition

The scope of World War II was unprecedented in its time and has yet to be succeeded by anything that remotely resembles it in terms of the number of participants, the geographical range of its impact, or the sheer extremity of its horror and carnage. Likewise, there has rarely been a catastrophic, man-made event on such a scale as to fully recalibrate the entire globe through its aftermath, as occurred in the wake of this international conflict. This is the impetus which drives the following discussion on the oft-overlooked impact of war on women.

Throughout history, where war has been fought, the emphasis on combat roles and administrative leadership responsibilities — both facilities significantly and exclusively occupied by men — has far overshadowed the supporting roles to which women have been relegated. The outcome is a recollection of wars and heroics that quite often excludes, minimizes, or disrespects the contributions made by women. There is yet an even greater injustice due for consideration: the opportunity provided by wartime conditions for a marked increase in the abuses inflicted upon women. The basest instincts of inequality, sexual objectification, and power imposition would manifest in several examples of wartime roles for women that were devastating and even deadly.

Perhaps what emerges most clearly from the discussion that follows — which synthesizes a recollection of both the opportunities and abuses facing women during the war — is the notion that a conflict on such a scale inevitably impacts everybody. While men sought to actively limit the roles which women could occupy in society, the totality of war would make these limitations impractical and impossible. As pioneers, so many of the women who experienced, survived, or sacrificed in World War II endured great difficulty and suffering so that women today could be entitled to equal service not just in the military, but in positions of public office, corporate leadership, and all manner of occupational responsibility that, prior to the workforce shifts and labor reorientation demanded by World War II, would have been considered unthinkable.

Economic factors in the years immediately preceding the war, Weinberg (1995) reveals, would play a significant part in the mounting tensions that ultimately produced the conflict. However, it is evident that these economic factors would quickly unearth a vast array of cultural tensions, pushing these issues largely to the forefront of events. In Germany, for instance, severe depression enabled Hitler to wrestle power from legitimate governmental structures and to levy the support of his people. His emphasis on imperial expansion and his scapegoating of the minority populations who would soon occupy his death camps throughout Europe provided Germans with a means of escaping the confines of economic stagnation while simultaneously realizing long-standing bigotry and prejudice.

Though the designs were quite different, similar objectives made the undertaking of the war effort beneficial to the United States. Though the attack on Pearl Harbor and Germany's declaration of war on the U.S. both provoked the first direct military intervention by the United States, it may be assessed that the flagging impact of Roosevelt's New Deal on the Great Depression ultimately demanded a new means of transcending economic woes. Wartime industries and the instantaneous job creation of a military draft became the immediate boon to American industries required to shake the nation from its productivity slumber.

These parallels are important in helping us to understand the strange dynamic between economy and culture that conspired to instigate the breadth and severity of conflict in World War II. As an underlying premise to the discussion held here, it should be understood that where oppression and abuse of a selected people exists, the women among them are certain to suffer the firmest brunt of it. The sexual power dynamics between the genders dictate that where men are victimized by oppression, both they and their oppressors tend to victimize women with greater intensity. By contrast, the observation in justice-oriented societies of the extremity of bigotry in the world will tend to incline internal reflection and reconciliation.

Though on the surface, the increased accessibility of public institutions to women in some contexts during World War II would be a product of strategic necessity, it would bear with it a change in core assumptions about women that must be seen as comparably progressive. Essentially, the discussion here will reveal that women played crucial and varied roles in the global conflict. And more to the point, both the advances in opportunities and the terrible horrors experienced by women during the war would help to establish the global identity of women today as deserving of equality and entitled to protection against the worst abuses of which men are capable.

Research on the roles of women during World War II demonstrates a clear pattern in which the records of Allied nations tend to be modestly progressive, if not reluctantly yielding to the demand for an elevation in the status of women. In nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom, the war would be an inflection point in gender relations, with women truly gaining access for the first time to military, civilian, labor, and professional responsibilities all culturally and psychologically associated with male social and economic roles. In the Soviet Union and Poland, where Marxist principle had taken firm philosophical root, there is an indication that women were perceived in many capacities as being equally capable as men in certain military roles. Here, the record for progressive equality was even more rapidly accelerated by World War II than in the West.

By sharp contrast, the impulses guiding the Axis powers — distinguished by aggressively dictatorial governmental structures and premises of strict social control — would reflect an intensification of the historical mistreatment of women. Even as the German military, for instance, allowed women to be elevated in civilian duties and required a strong corps of women to serve as SS guards in female barracks of the concentration and death camps, there is a clear history of sexual objectification and deviant abuse of female prisoners, as will be discussed hereafter. So too would this be the case with the Japanese, who would use aggressive and terrible tactics of sexual dominion over the women of occupied nations, both as a show of power and a determination to impose ethnic domination over foreign lands.

Though the research here makes clear distinctions between the behaviors of the Allied and Axis nations with regard to women, there is a consistency across all contexts. In each case, World War II would mark a point of separation in which the experiences of women would enter into transition. For many, this would mean a significant but measured improvement of conditions; for others, it would be a historical low point due for reflection and consideration in the interests of future prevention.

The discussion is largely founded on a synthesis of primary sources — including newspapers and publications concurrent with the war as well as interviews with individuals who experienced, participated in, or served in the war effort. Some support is given by secondary sources that provide basic documentation on the details, events, and notable individuals who served in the conflict.

Women in American Military and Civilian Service

The Library of Congress provides access to fascinating primary documents concerning the history of the nation and the men and women who have defended it. Military service, especially prior to more recent moves to diversify the ranks by gender, has been typically thought of as a male social or professional role. And indeed, during World War II, troops were constituted largely of men drafted for armed combat. However, their efforts could not have been possible without the support of the countless women who volunteered their services to the war.

The jobs available to women both on the front and back at home would not only be numerous — they would be a lynchpin of America's success in repelling advances by the Germans and Japanese on two separate fronts. Transcripts providing interview content from female servicewomen reveal this key role by identifying the range of opportunities available to women. Certainly, the most salient and important of roles would be those played by women in a medical capacity. On the battlefield, in hospital treatment and long-term care facilities in differing war theaters, and upon the return of soldiers to America, an expansive civilian staff of wartime nurses was constituted of active female military personnel.

There were a great many additional roles available to women as members of the support structure for the war effort. The entertainment troops that worked with the USO deployed women from all walks of life to foreign theaters to sing, dance, act, and otherwise provide the forces with relief from their heavy burdens. Women were also a significant part of the civilian staff, committing their abilities as typists, telephone switchboard operators, and facility administrators.

In an interview maintained by the U.S. Library of Congress, Ann Caracristi discussed one such responsibility. She reported being recruited by the military for participation in a project designed to compile and break Japanese radio codes. As her story indicates, she and two classmates fresh out of high school were among the many women specifically targeted for this type of responsibility. As Caracristi described her surprise recruitment to the military civilian sector: "It was all very mysterious. When I was assigned they said, 'Well, you're going to work on the Japanese problem.' And I said, 'Oh, heavens, I don't know anything about Japanese!' 'Don't worry,' they said, 'You'll learn.' Well, what I learned to do was sort endless amounts of paper — messages that had been intercepted and forwarded back for analysis. And the first thing you had to do was sort them. Edit them. And editing meant that we were preparing them to be typed up and put into the databanks of the day, which were the IBM cards. And that's the way we all started."^[2] Caracristi's story is just one of countless narratives in which the United States military and government openly sought candidates for service from all-girls schools as a way to create personnel for key support roles without drawing from the pool of male combat personnel and officers.

Though almost exclusively in auxiliary roles, there are examples where the need for personnel would prompt concerted recruitment of women to function as officers within their own demographic contexts. Captain Violet Gordon was an anomaly even within this challenging context — an African American woman with professional experience and the qualifications to be commissioned as an officer. She describes her own entrance into the military under these conditions. In a 2002 interview, Gordon states of her decision to respond to the military's call for African American women: "This was such a bold step in a way. One has to remember that at that time the Army was segregated, and there were nurses but there were no enlisted women or women officers as an official part of the Army. Of course, this would not be officially a part of the Army; it would be an Auxiliary branch of the Army. There were pros and cons."^[3] The cons would be the bigotry and segregation under which she would be forced to operate, even in interaction with her own allies. However, the pros are the reverberation of her daring move and that of her contemporaries — among the most pointedly oppressed demographics in American history — who would serve with dignity and honor when the United States called upon them.

One of the most highly visible, thoroughly publicized, and affectionately remembered roles for women during World War II was through the USO. This organization was responsible for providing entertainment and morale improvement to the troops both training in domestic military camps and serving on the front lines overseas. Dancing performances, comedy acts, and other forms of distraction were staged before audiences of soldiers, with singers, dancers, actresses, and celebrities helping men channel strength from feelings for a sweetheart back home.

Perhaps the most famous example of a woman in service to the morale of male soldiers was the USO-sponsored radio star Martha Wilkerson, who used American music recordings and lighthearted banter to conjure sentimental feelings for America among men on the front. Known by her radio moniker G.I. Jill, Wilkerson was something of a phenomenon to American servicemen, who depended on her broadcasts for comfort far from home. From an article published in Time Magazine in 1945, her role as a morale booster is described as follows: "As a War Department employee, Martha Wilkerson acts as a sort of counterirritant to 'Tokyo Rose.' Servicemen who listen regularly to both programs assure Jill that hers is superior. For one thing, Rose's records are mostly old and scratchy. But the explanation may be more basic. The fair flower of Tokyo exerts herself mightily to make U.S. servicemen homesick; G.I. Jill's trick is to make them feel at home."^[4] Tokyo Rose, a Japanese radio personality of renown, bore a symbolic importance to soldiers throughout the war in the Pacific. So too would G.I. Jill, with the two demonstrating the capacity of feminine appeal to help sustain men in dire circumstances.

Though it may be argued that such roles tended only to emphasize women's importance in a supplementary capacity to men's contributions, they would nonetheless be considered a crucial ingredient in creating and sustaining the psychological fortitude needed to emerge from this conflict victorious.

The Home Front: Labor, Sacrifice, and Shifting Gender Roles

Beyond symbolic and military support roles, there was a clear sense in the United States and Great Britain that the departure of men by the thousands had left home-line responsibilities entirely up to the female population. While many women sought out and found opportunities in the administrative ranks of the military, many more simply stepped into the vacant roles left by their husbands. An example comes from an interview with Arthella Anderson, a civilian service participant in World War II. Anderson tells of her responsibilities in place of her husband, who was away in training, as her town's air raid supervisor. Though it had been his job prior to the start of the war, she filled in as the primary enforcement figure for the paramilitary duty. Anderson recalls: "My husband was an air raid warden and he worked shift work at American Viscose, and it seemed to me like every time we had a blackout it was my — I had to take his place. So you had to go with a flashlight and you had to see that every house was dark."^[5]

Anderson's interview is also useful for its exposition of the feelings experienced by many women in civilian and wartime service. From the attack on Pearl Harbor to the time at which the Japanese had surrendered, Anderson underlines a certain sense of dread felt by all over the implications of war. She specifically notes the experience shared by women in service on the home front, who remained behind to work under the pressure of a terrible fear concerning who would be next to lose his life overseas. With word returning to small towns regularly about the deaths of husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, Anderson's interview is underscored by the shared female experience of unsettling anxiety. As part of a home-front force with a strong sense of responsibility, the relative distance of the war from American soil was not sufficient to insulate the civilian women's workforce from the realities of the conflict in its various theaters.

For those on the Allied side, this degree of support was crucial to the success of the war effort and the morale experienced by soldiers. In all the interviews considered, there is a real sense of pride concerning both an individual role and a collective effort seen as necessary to protect the world from forces of malevolence and destruction. Indeed, though the face of the military would be the young man with the semiautomatic weapon, its foundation would be something a great deal more diverse. Many women recognized World War II as a turning point not just in American and world history but also in the advancement of women in both professional and social regards. This would be the largest and most varied mobilization of women to the workplace up until that time, and as Anderson's experience demonstrates, it would also become increasingly apparent that professional and social roles typically viewed as "male" were being filled quite ably by the wives of their traditional occupants. Such service would pave the way for the eventual admission of women into general military combat opportunities as well as into many sectors of civilian life previously seen as pointedly male-oriented.

Among the permanent changes realized by the events of World War II, the professional potential of women would now be far more clearly illustrated. Quite as a matter of necessity, women would come to be understood as deserving of workplace opportunities previously denied them and as entitled to educational opportunities likewise previously obstructed. Returning to the case of Captain Gordon, for example, we can see that the increased accessibility of the military to women would inherently begin to open other doors. Reflecting on the advice of her friends to continue along her upward trajectory within the military, she notes: "They saw that there would be more value in remaining than in leaving at that juncture. They were so right because on discharge I finished my college and graduate school on my G.I. Bill."^[6] The policy awarding military service and honorable discharge with educational scholarship meant that women who had previously been denied access to both military and educational opportunities would now be welcomed to the latter because of an opening of the former.

Conclusion: Legacy and the Path Toward Equality

Still, we make these concessions with the point of understanding that the roles of women during World War II would be set in direct contrast to those available prior. Quite certainly, the global community would undergo a vast array of changes during the years of conflict whose implications would spill out across the following decades. Among them, the progressive force of change for women would be crucial. The misdeeds visited upon women in Eastern Europe and the Pacific Rim may never be fully accounted for and certainly will never be emotionally resolved for the victims and their offspring. However, there is cause on the basis of this discussion to argue that the comparably progressive ideologies which utilized World War II as an opportunity to elevate rather than further subjugate women would ultimately prevail. Thus, the changes which had initially been induced by strategic demand and economic need are today recognizable as some of the first steps in delivering us to the current global consensus that women are to be recognized as equally capable of performing in the responsibilities and capacities performed ably by men, and that women are to be entitled to access to such opportunities.

Additionally, this research yields the resolution that women are among the most vulnerable subjects of war due to the sexual power dynamics that are culturally ingrained in so many societies. Within such a framework, the context of war may bear an especially high level of danger for women, who even today in many developing parts of the world tend to suffer most egregiously in conditions of war and conflict. Thus, another crucial point of inflection that occurred during World War II was an understanding of the demand upon societies and cultures as a whole to preserve women against regressive behavior, sexual abuse, and gender subjugation. The ongoing efforts of organizations such as the United Nations to codify protections for women in conflict zones reflect the lasting relevance of the lessons learned during this period.

In sum, World War II would be demonstrative of the worst of that which humanity is capable. And as a result, it would bring out, in an effort of counterbalance, the best of that which women are capable. For the Allied forces in particular, the elevation of women to theretofore unattained heights would be a vital contributor to victory. For the women there elevated, this would be a pioneering moment in a history rife with obstacle and opportunity.